20 Replies - 4212 Views - Last Post: 18 June 2011 - 10:47 PM

Web Dev is the future. Desktop and Mobile Dev is a waste of time.?

Posted 16 June 2011 - 10:07 AM

Hi. I have been working in a small start up that deals in outsourcing software development. My boss is a classmate of mine and the owner too. He started making his bones by first working and teaching himself web development. So automatically he's really good at it. My strong suit is working on Desktop applications and Mobile Development. Now since I started working there he kept putting me on web development. We did do some mobile development but with PhoneGap, so in essence I was still doing Web Dev. I kept begging him to put me on the Android SDK projects. So now after a long time he finally put me there. I enjoy working on it. But he keeps on telling everyone that Web is the future and we should stop doing Desktop Application and Mobile Application cuz it's gonna get worthless one day and then the Web gurus will take over. He points out that web developers in USA make 6 figures where as Java developers or C# developers make like 1/3rd of it.

I want to discuss this notion.

Is web really so MUCH the future that it'll render the guys with low Web Skill worthless?

Replies To: Web Dev is the future. Desktop and Mobile Dev is a waste of time.?

Re: Web Dev is the future. Desktop and Mobile Dev is a waste of time.?

Posted 16 June 2011 - 10:14 AM

I agree that it's becoming more prominent, especially with "cloud computing." However, I don't see it ever completely rendering "the guys with low web skill worthless." We're going to see more of a shift towards the internet (especially if quantum computing takes hold within a few decades), but there will still be a genuine need for desktop and mobile developers. Especially mobile developers, I see that maintaining its prominence and growing, as people don't have to be on a desktop or laptop, just their phones.

Re: Web Dev is the future. Desktop and Mobile Dev is a waste of time.?

Posted 16 June 2011 - 10:44 AM

As a professional desktop and web developer in the US I can tell you desktop applications will always be around. I was listening to a funny conversation with another department head and the head of IT. The lady was swearing and sputtering up and down how "web is essentially dead unless it's mobile; by the year 2014". She demanded her what ever desktop application be made into a mobile webpage or something without loss of any functionality, speed, or reliability. Web, desktop, and mobile all have their places. I will also shank the dude making six figures doing web development and take his/her job.

If you like web design then sure... it's not a bad skill to have a moderate passing knowledge of.

Of course I can't speak for Pak's IT industry. If all you are looking for is mad PKR or USD then see what's in demand and learn that.

Re: Web Dev is the future. Desktop and Mobile Dev is a waste of time.?

Posted 16 June 2011 - 11:41 AM

Yeah, web isn't going to kill mobile at all. Remember, the iPhone tried that for a while. The first one. Rather than putting out a proper SDK, they put out a web SDK for making online applications that look like iPhone apps. And a lot of websites did it. But it's just not the same, as Apple discovered.

Now, mobile seems to be king, at least for outward facing web services. But there's so much that this debate isn't covering. What about middleware development? What about web service development. That's not exactly the same as web development, since it's not used to frontend anything. What about game development? That'll always have room for desktop (and console) development.

Re: Web Dev is the future. Desktop and Mobile Dev is a waste of time.?

Posted 16 June 2011 - 05:54 PM

also there is still going to be a lot of development for desktop applications as well. all the following still need to exist in order for the web and web applications to be made and exist

*operating systems and other extremely low level programing will HAVE to exist
*compilers will always have to exist as long as the lower level programs exist
*interpreters have to exist for the web to be what it is, this again requires a compiler to make an efficient interpreter.
*tools to develop code like debuggers, profilers, IDEs, build tools, ect..
*web browsers, you can't really have the web like it is today with out a web browser

there is still lots more that will always have to exist and be maintained. basically chickens have to lay eggs which have to hatch, they don't just magically come about.

Re: Web Dev is the future. Desktop and Mobile Dev is a waste of time.?

Posted 16 June 2011 - 06:45 PM

I don't think that mobile is going anywhere. If anything, it's gaining prominence. I can't speak for the iPhone SDK, but in the Android SDK, there is a lot of emphasis on combining a useful interface with internet-based services like RESTful/JSON data communication. And people inherently like the mobile interface when available so that information is shown in a way that is pleasant and easy to use.

Re: Web Dev is the future. Desktop and Mobile Dev is a waste of time.?

Posted 16 June 2011 - 07:12 PM

Web is amazing, but it can't do much of the cooler things simply can't be done at the moment. Not to mention that you can't (at this point) use Javascript, HTML, and PHP (common LAMP/ XAMPP applications) to build a web server. That means that until it is feasible to do so there will be jobs for C/C++ and/ or Java programmers around. Then there are Operating Systems, which I personally feel people won't want to be required to have an internet connection to make their computer work (look at webOS).

As for the quantum computing and what it has to do with the internet. That is simple. At the moment most secure connections use RSA encryption, which uses something like 2048 byte keys with a public/ private key encryption (asymmetric) algorithm. If there are quantum computers then factoring becomes a trivial problem (I believe it comes out to be close to if not a linear problem... or was it constant... either way it is exceptionally easy to break at that point). That would mean that no current web transaction would be guaranteed secure, which is a problem.

Re: Web Dev is the future. Desktop and Mobile Dev is a waste of time.?

Posted 16 June 2011 - 09:42 PM

I'm fairly certain that even if could write a web server that magically ran on pure Javascript (on a pure Javascript OS? Heh), that wouldn't actually be web development. Javascript is a programming language, first and foremost.